Our Family

Thursday, October 20, 2011

TOS Review: Wits & Wagers Family

We have had the opportunity to play and review a fun, family friendly board game from North Star Games called Wits & Wagers Family. Wits and Wagers Family simplifies the rules and scoring of the original Wits and Wagers so families and children can now play. For 3-10 players (recommended age is 8 and over) and with over 300 fun family friendly questions, Wits and Wagers Family is sure to provide hours of fun for the whole family!

You can find Wits and Wagers Family online or at a store near you. Price may vary depending on retailer. Retail price is $19.99.

Wits and Wagers Family contains:

150 question cards

5 dry erase answer boards

5 dry erase pens

5 large Meeples

5 small Meeples

1 dry erase score board

1 full color rules

Game play is very easy. You start the game by asking a trivia question. Some examples are: In miles per hour, how fast can an ostrich run? In the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, how many days does the caterpillar spend eating? How many times its own height can a flea jump? Everyone writes down a guess to the answer. Then you line up the boards with all the answers on the table. Players place their Meeples on the answer they think is the closest without going over. They can place their Meeples on their own answer, some one else's answer, or they can divide the Meeples between two answers. The answer is revealed and points are awarded to the players that chose the correct answer and the player that answered correctly. An average game takes around 20 minutes to complete.

You may be wondering by now what exactly a Meeple is? A Meeple is a fun, human shaped wooden piece that you use to select the answers that you believe are correct. They have been used in European style strategy games for years but this is the first time they have been used in a party game. Here is a picture I took of our Meeples.

We love Wits and Wagers Family! My children love to play games and we have had hours of family fun playing this one over the last couple of weeks. Wits and Wagers Family is so easy to learn, set up, and play. Although the age on the box says 8 and up, we have played it with our 6 and 4 year olds too, sometimes even giving our 2 year old her own board to play on (she really just draws but she thinks she is playing.) The ability to play using teams makes it easy to play with younger children. All you really need to be able to do is write numbers, and one person has to read well. Since the game uses trivia questions, there really is no advantage based on age. You can have the wrong answer and still earn points if you place your Meeple on one of the right answers. My four year old wrote the same answer on his card for every question, but scored a lot of points very quickly for putting the Meeples on the correct board. If you can count you can keep score. The score board is set up so you mark a slash for each correct point and the first person who gets to 15 wins. My boys were so into the game we were almost late to soccer twice because they did not want to stop playing to get ready to go.

I asked my children what their favorite thing was about Wits and Wagers Family. They said , "Everything!" I asked them what they wished was different they said, "Nothing!." As many times as they have played it, I don't think it will take long for the older ones to memorize the answers. They do make an expansion pack for the original Wits and Wagers that can also be used for Wits and Wagers Family. We might just have to invest in that.

Welcome!

I am glad you are here. My name is Lisa and I am married to my best friend Art. We have been blessed with 7 children: Chelsea 19, Nicholas 14, Alexander 13, Anthony 11, Christian 9, Lillian 7, and Emelia 5. I am a stay at home home schooling mom and enjoy reading, cooking, baking, scrapbooking, and sewing. I also enjoy reviewing family friendly products and homeschool curriculum. Please leave me any comments or questions you have, or email me if you have a product that you would like reviewed.